I bought my Dreamcast shortly after its memorable 9/9/99 release date. As a devoted Nintendo fanboy who had snapped up each of their consoles since the venerable NES, I felt a little dirty picking up a Sega machine, especially as I set it down next to my cherished N64. But with surplus cash from a pre-Uni gap year burning a hole in my pocket, and emboldened by the positive wave of feedback for the Dreamcast on launch, I took the plunge.

Alongside my new console was a brand new copy of Sonic Adventure, Sega’s first true follow-up to the original trilogy on the Megadrive. Again I felt dirty. I had sworn on oath at the altar of Mario, and now I was committing treason. Sure, I had played quick snatches of Sonic The Hedgehog and Sonic 2 on friends’ Megadrives back in the mists of time, but now I had actually bought my own Sonic game. I had gone over to the dark side, and it was all spiky and blue. I had little hope that Sonic would instill in me the same sense of wonder as Super Mario 64 – easily my favourite game at the time – but I still remember to this day that blazing speed across the breaking wooden runways and the sudden appearance of a massive whale behind Sonic, as the fast ‘lil bugger ran into the screen. Wow, I thought. This is the future.

Fast forward eleven years, and the future is here. Turns out I was wrong. The Dreamcast, despite being critically acclaimed, was bludgeoned into an early death by Sony’s new juggernaut, the PlayStation, putting a final nail in Sega’s hardware coffin, already lined with the commercial failures of the 32X and Saturn. Sonic has seen his stock fall spectacularly due to a procession of mediocre games which took the players further and further away from what enthralled them in the original titles. But Sega are now banking on reviving that early magic – Sonic 4 is currently in development, a glorious HD return to the side-scrolling platformer that blazed a trail in the Megadrive era, and last week, the HD re-release of Sonic Adventure on XBLA. A decade on, does it still hold up?

The short answer is: for the most part, no it doesn’t. When Sonic Adventure shines, it transcends its age and becomes almost uniquely thrilling. In its early levels, Sonic Team remember what made Sonic so appealing in the original games – pure speed. The opening level, complete with the afore-mentioned whale, and the windy level set in the Mystic Ruins, are pure platforming joy. Sonic cuts through them like lightning, a blue blur careening into huge strings of rings, each one pinging off the familiar chime from childhood. The camera swoops in and out of the action as Sonic races around corkscrews and defies gravity, or hits a bumper at full speed and is catapulted to an otherwise inaccessible area to continue the headlong, breathless dive to the end of the level. At some points, the game takes over, wresting control of Sonic away from the player in order to swing the camera round so he runs pell-mell into it, framing the breakneck speed from the most cinematic angle. But mostly, it’s the skill of the player that navigates these quickfire platform challenges, and when it gels, as it does in those first dizzying stages, the result is still breathtaking, even a decade on.

And then, experimentation sets in. Suddenly Sonic becomes the ball in a giant pinball machine, tasked with laboriously wracking up 400 rings to continue, or needs to commandeer a bumper car, or shoot enemy ships in Miles Tails’ airplane, the Tornado. Rather than polish and perfect Sonic in his pure unadulterated form, Sonic Team made the fatal mistake of mixing things up. The result is a game that explodes out of the blocks and then hits a brick wall, the Casinopolis level bringing the pacing to a shuddering halt. This experimentation is compounded further by Sonic Adventure’s unneccessary hub world, a non-descript jumble of hard angles and ugly textures and bizarrely human creations. Why, for example, would Sonic need to board a train? Surely he’s faster than the train? Given the default speed that Sonic runs at (pretty fast, as you might expect) the hubworld feel surprisingly cramped, and it’s not uncommon to find yourself running frequently into walls as you struggle to control the fast ‘lil bugger.

Sonic Adventure’s biggest flaw is, ironically, sometimes its greatest asset. That soaring camera that can thrill and delight in moments where the action demands such cinematic framing, often frustrates in other areas. It never feels as if it’s in the correct position, often getting too close, or demanding that the player move into the screen (and some hidden, unavoidable hazard) far too often, resulting in cheap deaths aplenty. In some of the later levels, these flaws almost become ruinous, with the platforming requiring a precision that the camera often fails to provide.

But over the top of these deep cracks, its impossible not to be charmed by Sonic’s bright, enthusiastic veneer. Already a beautiful game to begin with, with chunky character models and saturated hues, the HD sheen makes everything pop and ooze with life. The music can be incredibly infectious, particularly the killer guitar riffs of the game’s final stage, but in other parts repetitious and irritating. The voice acting is executed in a style befitting its younger audience; an attitude lifted straight out of Saturday morning cartoons of the era. ‘I’ll play with you some other time!’ croons Sonic as he bests another boss, punching the air in a victory pose. ‘Get a load of THIS!’ guffaws Robotnik, a little too often, following another barrage of laser beams. Such hammy delivery should detract from the experience, but in a world where brightly-hued animals are the heroes and the recurring villain is a water puddle powered by emeralds, they feel perfectly in character.

Sonic Adventure hasn’t aged well, then. A half-breed of the purity of speed of the Megadrive-era titles, and a botched attempt at emulating Super Mario 64’s exemplary hubworld, it shoots for a high bar it only rarely achieves. Whilst its opening levels can still entertain a decade on, the entirety of the game can’t help but give the player the feeling that Sonic Adventure is best remembered with rose-tinted spectacles firmly in place, and not a re-examination of its respective merits. Die-hard fans of Sega’s most recognisable asset will want to snap this up, particularly with the added bonus of Achievements and Trophies, but those that missed this the first time round may want to think twice before paying the full asking price to see what all the fuss was about all those years ago.